Elseworlds: Shifting Sands
by Neemers
Summary: What if Dick had lived in ancient Egypt?


Summary: Everyone here knows how Nightwing came to be. How a poor orphan boy was taken in by one of the city's elite and taught how to protect his home, even if what he was doing was technically illegal. We know how he fell in love with the red-headed daughter of a police chief, and strives to make things work out.  
  
But what if it wasn't Gotham, or even the twentieth century? What if it was someplace, sometime other than that which we know?  
  
This story answers that question, and if I get enough requests, I'll probably turn it into a series of fics.  
  
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine.  
  
Shifting Sands  
  
By Neemers  
  
Note: This story is set in ancient Egypt.  
  
The present:  
  
"After him!"  
  
Uh-oh. The guards had found me. They were too late, though. I had what, or pehaps I should say who, I had come for. A terrified five-year-old girl lay sobbing in my arms. She would have been shrieking if I didn't have my hand over her mouth.  
  
A spear flew by my ear. The guards were inproving their aim. Just more evidence that it was time for me to make my exit. I whistled for Kem. That high, shrieking whistle that no true Egyptian could hope to copy.  
  
All the guards had seen me now. No reason to gag the girl any longer, and I needed at least one hand free for what was ahead.  
  
Kem was almost below me. I leaped off the second story rooftop and landed on Kem, using my whole body to absorb the shock just as Adisa had taught me. Kem continued galloping straight on. He knew I didn't need to be astride him to have my balance. I turned around, still standing on Kem's back.  
  
The guards were getting faster. They were already hitching up their horses to chariots. I wondered if they'd ever wise up and start hitching the chariots to the horses chests instead of their heads. I certainly know I wouldn't want to use my head to drag anything.  
  
Moments later I was out of the city and headed into the deep desert. The guards were still chasing me, no matter how futile the gesture might be. They chased me in thin-wheeled chariots across the soft sand while I rode upon the mighty stallion Kem. It was really no contest.  
  
They should have realized by now that they would never catch the Gereh Deneh, the Nightwing. They had tried for so long, and never even come close.  
  
Fifteen years ago:  
  
I was so excited. I was almost nine years old! I knew my parents had something special planned. We were only poor acrobats, but our act was renouned. Father(1) had made our act the most unusual in all of Egypt. Where most acrobats merely danced about on the ground, father had created his pt-iarew, his sky-sticks.  
  
He attached two swings made of long roped attached to either end of strong dried reeds and attached them to an overhead network of ropes that he built for each show. We did many of our shows at night, when the deeply died reeds and ropes could not be seen by the audience below. Then it looked like we were truly flying through the air, dancing to some rhythm that only we knew.  
  
We were part of a greater group of performers. I knew them all by craft and name. There was Adisa the horsemaster, Ndidi the magician, Imhotep the escape artist, Obi the knife thrower, and many more. I was the only child in our tribe, which meant that everyone viewed my as their child. They taught me their skills. I dreamed that someday I would be the greatest performer in all of Egypt and be called to perform for the Pharoh.  
  
A dog of a man was trying to talk Hali, the leader of our tribe, into buying protection. From what? We had nothing worth stealing, and what little we did have we shared freely. I knew I was missing something, especially when Hali started screaming words that Mewet(2) had told me were bad words. He followed this up by a suggestion that I did not think could be physically done. Later I'd have to ask Kamal the contortionist if such a thing was possible.  
  
I spent the afternoon talking with father as we checked the ropes of the pt- iarew for fraying before we set it up. This was one of my favorite times. Once we knew that all the ropes were sturdy father climbed up the wall of the building we were to peform in that night to set the ropes. I stood below, feeding lengths of rope up to him.I loved wathcing him spider staight up any wall like it was nothing at all. He had taught me how, but sometimes I was too small to reach from one crack to the next.  
  
It was finally showtime. We were performing for one of the richest men in the city, the scribe Brus of the family Wane. His family had been the true power in Gothem for hundreds of years, yet they used their power so well that the people loved them. That's what Hali told me, anyways, though his information was fifteen years out of date.  
  
We were up. Me and Father and Mewet. Some of the ladies below actually gasped as they saw my father seem to leap off into nothingness. I could imagine them blushing as they saw that father was flying through the air instead of splattering on the ground. I dared not look down, though. I needed my eyes accustomed to the dark so I could see the pt-iarew. The fires down below would make me lose my edge.  
  
A moment later I took my own leap into the air. Father caught me and swung me to the next pt-iarew. A moment later Mewet leaped off to join Father. For a moment I merely sat and watched my parents dance above the ground. A few moment later my smile turned to a silent scream as the firelight below reflected off someone's jewelry and onto a spot on the rope where it had been sawn more than halfway through.  
  
I opened my mouth to scream to my parents, but it was too late. The rope snapped and what the ladies had feared minutes before became reality for both my parents.  
  
A moment later I was beside them, hugging the still-warm body of Mewet as men tried to pull me off of her. Later men told me that I crawled up the rope of the pt-iarew, across the baseropes, and spidered down the walls just like my father, but I remember none of that. What I do remember, or rather have eternally perfectly  
  
preserved in my memory, is the way my parents looked after they fell.  
  
Men finally succeded in prying me off of Mewet. I screamed, I don't know for how long, at the injustice of the world. Then I broke down crying. When I finally came back to the world around me I found that Brus had held me as I cried. To this day I don't know if he was there for seconds or hours.  
  
The city guards decided the an orphan boy should not be allowed amoung the performers, and so I was torn away from the only family I had ever known. Brus took me in. I lived with him and his servant Alred. Within a week I realized that, even if Alred would never admit it, he was more of a father to Brus than a servant.  
  
The first night there I screamed at Brus, told him how he could never understand my loss. Then he told me about how he had lost his parents to a thief after his mewet's menit(3). He told me about how the thief had had a sword and cut his parents down before him.  
  
Days later, he told me about how he had seen the sign of the city guards the thief wore as he left. About how then and there he had decided to clean up the corruption in Gothem.  
  
He told me about how he had continued his training as a scribe so that he would be right there in the middle of the power center, yet still outside of it. He told me about finding out the conspiracies Gothem herself seemed intent on hiding, and bringing them to light.  
  
He had found a few honest city officials and would write to them in the common man's crude pictograms, telling them of what new plots were present. He signed his letters as Kekewey Waw, The Dark Warrior. It was whispered in the streets that he was the world's greatest detective. That I could believe. But I had to fight back the urge to laugh whenever some one suggested that Kekewey Waw was a spirit, not a man.  
  
He was in and out of the houses of the leaders so often that his presence was never connected either with spying or the notes. None suspected him with the act of ignorance he put on. Behind his back they called him The Wexa(4). I think I was the only one that saw that little smile on his face every time he heard someone call him that when they thought he was out of earshot. I thought his was a fool's quest indeed, until he found the man who had cut the ropes of Father's pt-iarew and saw him punished.  
  
Soon I joined his quest, signing my own letters as Sa neyet Ra Bin, Son of the Bad Day. Soon the guards I overheard talking about me and Brus merely called me Ra Bin, the bad day. That was when I knew that I was finally making a difference.  
  
Brus may have been happy with what he was doing, but I knew that more things were possible. With the skills I had learned from my tribe, I knew I could take a more active role, but I was not ready yet.  
  
Still, there had been no detectives amoung out tribe, so I took the time to learn all he had to teach. He had even discovered new ways of tracking, such as how what he called deba ses(5) were left behind on every surface a man touched, and each man had his own deba ses. It was amazing how many men he tracked down through the tiniest signs.  
  
In all my time training for my future, I only had one distraction. Babera, the daughter of Jeem of the house of Goden, chief of the city guards. He was one of the few honest officials in all of Gothem.  
  
Amoung the other children of high society we were both outcasts. Me because I was the strange orphan acrobat boy adopted by the Wexa, she because she had strange hair. The other children teased her and Deseret(6). They attempted to call me names at first as well, but quit when I showed them a few tricks I had learned from some of the men in my tribe. I knew they still called me names, but never to my face.  
  
The others saw only the different, but to me, she was beautiful. That strange, red hair looked like the sunset to me. As a child, that was always my favorite time of day, the time spent preparing for the great night shows with my parents. She was a few years older than me, but that didn't matter.  
  
The first time I saw her she was climbing up the side of a building to retrieve her amulet from where it had been thrown by the other children. The moment I saw her bravery in the heights and how the sun set her hair ablaze, I knew that someday I would marry her.  
  
She was incredibly smart. She figured out who Kekewey and Ra Bin truly were. Then, instead of turning us in, she joined us. She signed her own notes as Oracle. She had to explain to Brus what it meant, but I knew. My tribe had traveled far to entertain, and I not only knew of the Greeks, but even spoke their language.  
  
We grew closer. In time Babera even let me call her by her own pet name, Babs. Anyone else who dared to call her that found out just what a spitfire she was.  
  
But with time while I was accepted, her hair forever set her apart. Once she was grown and began wearing wigs, it would have been easy to forget if stray tendrils of hair didn't keep finding a way to sneak out. She decided that I should find someone else, someone who would not disgrace me, but I could not. She had my heart. She still let me call her Babs, so I knew I still had a chance. She was one in a million, and I was not letting her get away.  
  
In time her father was called on to move to a place called Senef Iteret(7). Why anyone would call a town by such a name, I did not know. All I knew was that I had to follow Babs there. I even joined the city guards, both to get information and to get closer to Babs.  
  
She knew that if she continued to deliver her Oracle notes, the connection would be made, so she agreed to tell me things so I could fix them. Back in Gothem, Brus would use all three names on his notes so that none would know that Ra Bin and Oracle had left.  
  
I was finally ready to make my entrance. I was ready to take on the fight actively. I did not want to be recognized, so I used kohl to draw a mask upon my face. Instead of the traditional full Egyptian wig, I wore a scruffy looking wig Janu had given me when I was still with my tribe. I glued it down with his "special mix" so that I would look like a commoner. It was easy enough to remove when I wished.  
  
I needed something more. For the darkness of the night, I would wear black. Black sandals and black kilt. But something was still missing. In a moment I had the solution. Years ago Father had been given an especially magnificent menit(3) for an excellent performance. As a child the pattern had always reminded me of the outstretched wings of a bird. I added it, along with staps below my arms to keep it in place in case I needed to use my acrobatics.  
  
Next I added heavy, hollow gauntlets. I filled the space within with various tricks that might prove useful. I also wore bags filled with various tricks. I knew how to make Ndidi's magic powders and Obi had taught me how to wield any weapon known to man.  
  
Now for travel needs. I had my horse, Kem, who I would ride astride instead of in those silly chariots. It was so much faster to travel astride a horse than in a contraption you make it pull with its head.I put a harness on him so that he could carry more tricks for me. They were light enough, and some of them might save my life one day. Li had taught me how to mix certain powders together to make what he called fireworks. I knew if I lit one and dropped it in the guard's path one day they'd scatter from the sudden bright flare, brighter than any fire, and the cracks and pops that came from within.  
  
But what would I do for a name? I wished to put deneh(8) in it, in reference to the menit of my father and his legacy. Yet I also wanted to honor Brus. The called him the Waw, the warrior from the way he signed his writings. I remembered Justin from my troup telling me about a barbarian northern tongue he called English, and how comfusing it was. Their word for waw was pronounced nite, yet their word for gereh(9) was also pronounced nite. Thuse I would be a nite, like Brus, but not the same nite. I would be Gereh Deneh, the Nightwing.  
  
Present:  
  
I had lost the guards and continued racing across the sands. The  
  
girl had finally stopped screaming. I think she realized where I was taking her. A few minutes later we were at our destination, the camp of some desert nomads. I helped her down and she raced straight to the biggest tent, the tent of her father. She was home. There would be no ransom collected on her, and no risk of the city guards killing her once the ransom was collected.  
  
___________________________________________________________________  
  
(1) I had planned on using the Egyptian word for father, until I  
  
found out that it was spelled "it"  
  
(2) mother  
  
(3) necklace  
  
(4) fool  
  
(5) Finger writing  
  
(6) red crown  
  
(7) Blood Haven  
  
(8) wing  
  
(9) night  
  
_______________________________________________________________  
  
Questions? Comments? Feedback is always welcome. 


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